PA PA - Philadelphia, 30th St Station, AsianMale 20-30, UP7438, gun stolen from WI, note, scars, Apr'94

[CarlK90245]

he looks Southeast Asian to me as in Laos, Cambodia, possibly Vietnamese or Indonesian/Malaysian.

does not particularly look Thai to me and I am not familiar with those Burma/Myanmar so I can't say if that nationality is in the running.

I've been to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam and Burma/Myanmar. The dark skin, smallish nose and wide high cheeks looks Cambodian, but Cambodians tend to have fuller lips than he does.

I would say he's probably Vietnamese. Here's a photo that I took in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) of a guy with a similar look.

 

[Narkj]

I'm a reporter at the Philadelphia Daily News. I'm also interested in this case and I agree the sketch looks nothing like the actual photo of the deceased. I'm not convinced that this guy killed himself either.

Given that he was found at 30th Street Station, he could have come in from anywhere. The place sees millions of passengers each year. Philadelphia has a large Asian population.

 

[foryourwine]

Strange he was wearing latex gloves, and the note he (assuming he killed himself) left.."WITH GLOVES ON HIS FINGERS AND BLOOD ON HIS TOES. HE WILL HAVE MUSIC WHEREVER HE GOES. DON'T F*** WITH THE DRAGONS"
Sounds like "The Dragons" could be a gang? The note sounds threatening for a suicide note. Not sure what to make of it. I wonder why they don't have a DNA sample?

 

[Kimster]

I'm a reporter at the Philadelphia Daily News. I'm also interested in this case and I agree the sketch looks nothing like the actual photo of the deceased. I'm not convinced that this guy killed himself either.

Given that he was found at 30th Street Station, he could have come in from anywhere. The place sees millions of passengers each year. Philadelphia has a large Asian population.

:welcome: to Websleuths! Glad to have you on board!

:wagon:

arty:

 

[Ambercat]

The gun that was found with this UID was reported stolen from residence in Wisconsin in 1985. Wook Kim, a 22 year old Asian Male, went missing from Madison, WI about a year before this UID was found (he was the most recent Asian male to go missing in the USA before the man was found deceased (per NamUS)). I don't see a resemblance between Mr. Kim and the UID.

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/9587/3

A possibility could be Linh Tran who went missing from Santa Cruz, CA, also in 1993. There isn't a photo of Mr. Tran on NamUs. https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/1453/2

 

[Narkj]

I think WookKim does in fact look like the UID. I've had no luck getting in touch with med examiner from 1994. He's around, but I don't think he can respond

 

[outofthedark]

Decedent was found in a bathroom stall at a train station (30th St Station) in Philadelphia wearing a pair of latex gloves. He had what was determined to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound of the head. A .25 caliber handgun (RAVEN MP25) was recovered from the scene, the gun had been reported stolen from a residence in Wisconsin nine years prior (1985). The decedent had no effects other than a handwritten note stating:

"WITH GLOVES ON HIS FINGERS AND BLOOD ON HIS TOES. HE WILL HAVE MUSIC WHEREVER HE GOES. DON"T [EXPLETIVE] WITH THE DRAGONS"

Might "The Dragons" be the Black Dragons gang (California)?

https://identifyus.org/en/cases/7438

 

[outofthedark]

Strange he was wearing latex gloves, and the note he (assuming he killed himself) left.."WITH GLOVES ON HIS FINGERS AND BLOOD ON HIS TOES. HE WILL HAVE MUSIC WHEREVER HE GOES. DON'T F*** WITH THE DRAGONS"
Sounds like "The Dragons" could be a gang? The note sounds threatening for a suicide note. Not sure what to make of it. I wonder why they don't have a DNA sample?

There is the "Black Dragons" gang in California, whose members are Chinese. Maybe he was a member?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Dragons_(gang)

Here's the Flying Dragons: Flying Dragons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[outofthedark]

The dates are off

Anyways, feel free to delete this thread if needed. Thanks for letting me know.

 

[pjclover]

There is a Dragons gang on the West Coast. There is also a Flying Dragons gang out of NYC that originated in Hong Kong. I don't know how active they are now, but apparently around the time of this murder they were involved in heroin trafficking in Chinatown areas of major cities. 30th street in Philadelphia isn't terribly close to Chinatown, but it's the closest major hub from which someone could take a local train into NJ and then back into NYC.

That note is so bizarre. "With gloves on his fingers and blood on his toes, he will have music wherever he goes."
is a play on the old nursery rhyme: "With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, she shall have music wherever she goes." I never knew the title, but it's called Ride a Horse and it's a very old English rhyme. The Hong Kong connection would make sense, since it was a British colony for a long time.

I'm wondering about the gloves. What reasons would someone committing suicide have to put on gloves?

 

[outofthedark]

There is a Dragons gang on the West Coast. There is also a Flying Dragons gang out of NYC that originated in Hong Kong. I don't know how active they are now, but apparently around the time of this murder they were involved in heroin trafficking in Chinatown areas of major cities. 30th street in Philadelphia isn't terribly close to Chinatown, but it's the closest major hub from which someone could take a local train into NJ and then back into NYC.

That note is so bizarre. "With gloves on his fingers and blood on his toes, he will have music wherever he goes."
is a play on the old nursery rhyme: "With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, she shall have music wherever she goes." I never knew the title, but it's called Ride a Horse and it's a very old English rhyme. The Hong Kong connection would make sense, since it was a British colony for a long time.

I'm wondering about the gloves. What reasons would someone committing suicide have to put on gloves?

The note is seriously strange for a suicide death, esp. for the tone!

 

[pjclover]

The note is seriously strange for a suicide death, esp. for the tone!

It is. But, at the same time it doesn't seem like typical gang MO to leave a rhyming note at the scene of a hit. Writing i there would mean staying around enough to risk getting caught, so it would probably have been written prior to arriving and carried there. Many gang hits are done in manner that leaves no doubt as to who did it, so the "Don't **** with the Dragons part" doesn't mesh with the wounds being [seemingly] self-inflicted. If they're basically implicating themselves through the note then why go through the trouble of making it appear to be a suicide?

I'm not sure the gun coming from Wisconsin has any particular geographical relevance. A street gun that had been circulating for that long could have made its way pretty much anywhere.

I'm not finding anything about gangs placing gloves on their victims, but I'll keep on looking.

 

[Narkj]

Yes, the note is the reason why I started looking into this case. It's incredibly bizarre and I also learned that it's a very old nursery rhyme, common in England but not in the U.S. I had never heard it before and I doubt it's commonly known in many Asian countries.

I had also assumed it was some type of gang hit. There were many Asian gangs working in Philadelphia at the time. Also, if you look at his photos on NAMUS, you have to conclude that he put the gun in his mouth and shot through the back. There's no visible signs of trauma to his head.

I didn't have much luck talking to the ME's office about, no one could definitively answer why it was a suicide and not a homicide.

 

[Claudette]

Bizarre, this does not sound like a suicide in my opinion. Why leave a cryptic note about yourself?

 

[Fin]

do we know if LE determined if there was gun powder residue on the victim's gloves? ie. was it the victim who actually pulled the trigger? victim angled gun shot?

 

[carbuff]

White socks, white underwear, and no tattoos does not exactly scream "gangsta" to me (though it's possible), so I went looking for what that poem might mean.

I don't know whether it was in 1994, but "dragon" is sometimes slang for marijuana cigarettes. You know, like Puff the Magic?

"F*** you, I'm a dragon" is a slogan for a group of people who identify as otherkin. Just google it; I don't feel up to explaining...but here's an example: http://forum.deviantart.com/community/complaints/1253645/. I don't know to what extent this particular form of insanity existed yet in 1994; some sources I found trace the phrase to a flame war in LiveJournal in 1997, but the people who think they're dragons were around before that. So maybe.

Dragons are common in the world of Dungeons and Dragons and online role-playing games, and would have already been pretty common in 1994, though not as prevalent as now.

The St. Benedict medal includes a line "May the holy cross be my light! May the dragon never be my overlord!" which is known as the Vade retro satana among Catholics. The dragon there represents Satan. I can see somebody who got involved with some sort of neo-black-pagan cult thinking they had f***ed with Satan and lost. Too bad he's not carrying a medal.

I also found some stuff that's just too weird to even follow up on.

 

[carbuff]

Bizarre, this does not sound like a suicide in my opinion. Why leave a cryptic note about yourself?

If you look through other UIDs who are suicides, there are quite a few who left notes of varying degrees of strangeness...especially the ones who are having a mental/emotional breakdown.

Also, if it was just in his pocket, it might not have been intended as a suicide note. It might have just been a snip of a song he liked, or the beginning of a note to a friend, or a poem he was writing.

 

[azure]

do we know if LE determined if there was gun powder residue on the victim's gloves? ie. was it the victim who actually pulled the trigger? victim angled gun shot?

That was my first thought as well. Is there some way the gloves could have been used to hide a lack of gunshot residue on the hands?

Also, if the station is that busy, were there any witnesses in the restroom who heard what happened? If such an event happened today, the station would likely be evacuated and it would be national news. It's hard to believe there was nobody who at least heard the gunshot in 1994.

 

[Filly]

How terribly sad. I never heard of this poor guy before.

I'm going to say there's a Hmong connection. The gun was stolen in Wisconsin and they have a huge Hmong population and gang problem. Many Hmong who came to Philadelphia settled in West. Being as opposed to South Philly and Olney. Wook Kim is Korean and how would he have gotten here?

No, this young man doesn't scream gangster, but Asian gangs from what little I know don't have a ton of tattoos. They more go with subtle scars and stuff on parts you could see like their hands. That way when they go in to terrorize some poor shop owner they see the scars. It just says this guy had a scar on his knee.

No way was he a student at Penn or Drexel as somebody would be missing him. He may not be Hmong himself, but I think he is.

As for nobody hearing a gunshot? The ladies room is huge. It's policed big time since 9/11. The mens room I'd think the same, but it's always so noisy and busy in there. Not even alot of cruising that I know of.

It is bizarre. My dad was still on then, but in East Detectives. I wish he was still alive so he could ask.

Just bizarre and sad.

 

[Filly]

There is a Dragons gang on the West Coast. There is also a Flying Dragons gang out of NYC that originated in Hong Kong. I don't know how active they are now, but apparently around the time of this murder they were involved in heroin trafficking in Chinatown areas of major cities. 30th street in Philadelphia isn't terribly close to Chinatown, but it's the closest major hub from which someone could take a local train into NJ and then back into NYC.

pj, I don't think it's a Korean or Chinese connection. You're right though. He could have came with someone from NY or who knows even Virginia. There's Vietnamese gangs in Virginia. Why here though?

Makes me wonder if someone saw "Witness" and figures you can murder someone in the men's room there? That or whoever it was knew that bathroom. Probably walked through it enough times. The bathrooms are away on the side. I don't remember if that Dunkin Donuts and food court stuff was there back in '94 though.